Championship Manager Thread

[Peakite]

I've played against a side with Phil Neville in goal for most of the 90 minutes, although in his case he allowed my out of form striker to put five past him (the in form one could only grab two).

[Fah Que]

hahahaha. never happened to me before. Although one time all my keepers were either injuried or suspended. I had to use a gray out keeper. Luckily he only saw 2 shots and kept a clean sheet.

[Peakite]

I've just, accidentally, managed to play an outfield player in goal during a friendly game, he kept a clean sheet. First action in the game was one of their players headbutting one of mine.

My ongoing save is still producing it's share of oddities, my regular captain has been banned for unprofessional behaviour for the past three years (including twice within a couple of months at one point), making that four times for him alone. Funny thing is that it took the best part of two decades before I saw it happening to any player, let alone mine.

Also Sliema Wanderers are now defending their Champions League crown.

[DutchFootballRulez]

Amazingly I had to put Ronnie in Goal after I used all my subs and the keeper went down in CM4.
Luckily Gaucho had to make no saves.

[Peakite]

================================================================================================
2150/1 Table
================================================================================================

Pos Team Pld Won Drn Lst For Ag Won Drn Lst For Ag Pts
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1st C Rotherham 46 13 7 3 28 12 13 8 2 26 8 93
2nd P York 46 13 6 4 21 8 11 6 6 19 14 84
3rd P Cardiff 46 9 8 6 23 23 14 5 4 33 18 82
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4th P Sheff Utd 46 11 8 4 24 13 9 10 4 20 12 78
5th Northampton 46 10 10 3 19 10 9 11 3 18 8 78
6th Leeds 46 8 8 7 17 15 14 2 7 33 14 76
7th Shrewsbury 46 12 6 5 29 15 7 7 9 25 25 70
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8th Moor Green 46 12 5 6 24 15 6 10 7 16 17 69
9th Luton 46 12 4 7 27 19 5 12 6 18 21 67
10th Colchester 46 9 8 6 22 15 8 6 9 26 23 65
11th Man City 46 10 3 10 22 19 8 7 8 26 29 64
12th Everton 46 8 6 9 14 16 7 11 5 16 15 62
13th Wigan 46 4 12 7 13 18 10 7 6 27 17 61
14th Hartlepool 46 10 5 8 19 15 6 8 9 15 18 61
15th Lincoln 46 9 9 5 31 26 5 8 10 11 16 59
16th Stockport 46 6 10 7 15 14 6 7 10 12 15 53
17th Halifax 46 9 4 10 20 22 5 4 14 21 34 50
18th Cheltenham 46 4 6 13 12 33 9 5 9 19 22 50
19th Chelsea 46 8 6 9 27 36 3 6 14 22 37 45
20th Woking 46 7 9 7 20 18 2 8 13 10 25 44
21st Gainsborough 46 5 13 5 13 16 3 7 13 6 19 44
22nd Sheff Wed 46 5 13 5 11 11 1 12 10 3 15 43
23rd Sittingbourne 46 4 11 8 9 17 2 9 12 5 22 38
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
24th R Telford 46 6 6 11 12 28 2 7 14 7 28 37

Unfortunately I do appear to be rather emulating recent real life Halifax seasons. Spent half this season at the bottom of the table before a good run mid season.

Still it is better than Liverpool. They will be in the Unibond for the forthcoming season.

[Fah Que]

What are we looking at here? EPL in year 2150 ? :eek:

[Darr]

Yep, and Leeds are still in the top flight... :)

[DutchFootballRulez]

Chelsea is still there. Yet Manchester has been relegated how long? Lemme guess Alex Ferguson's corpse was finally canned last season?

[Fah Que]

Originally posted by DutchFootballRulez
Chelsea is still there. Yet Manchester has been relegated how long? Lemme guess Alex Ferguson's corpse was finally canned last season?

Notice there are 46 games so it can't be EPL.

[Peakite]

It's the third division.

Man Utd are in the first division, and have just missed out in the last few minutes of the previous season on promotion to the Premiership - it has been about 90 years since they were last there.

Actaully at the moment there are quite a few of the starting Premiership clubs currently there. Bradford currently the highest placed in 2nd (Dagenham lead), with Derby, Sunderland, Newcastle, West Ham and Charlton also there. Newcastle excepted the others have all featured there quite regularly and won the title, Newcastle have improved of late, but have spent most of the intervening years down the divisions.

Liverpool, Ipswich, Coventry and Watford the only four currently out of the Conference.

[Fah Que]

That makes more sense. I think the game is wacked after about 30 years or so. I don't know about 01/02 because I just started recently, but in 00/01, the game does not reach a financial equilibrium. There is way too much money in the game in 00/01 in all the big clubs and trickle down to lower divisions. Every team in serie A is super rich. If teams have a lot of money, you would think teams would bid up the wages and transfer fees but they don't. For this reason, I don't think the game is good after about 30 years or so. 01/02 could be different I don't know.

[DutchFootballRulez]

So in 147 years of horrible horrible moves and play the Premiership will be nothing like it is now. and Chelsea will be a 3rd division side.

WOW, you know CM is always right.

[Peakite]

Originally posted by Fah Que
That makes more sense. I think the game is wacked after about 30 years or so. I don't know about 01/02 because I just started recently, but in 00/01, the game does not reach a financial equilibrium. There is way too much money in the game in 00/01 in all the big clubs and trickle down to lower divisions. Every team in serie A is super rich. If teams have a lot of money, you would think teams would bid up the wages and transfer fees but they don't. For this reason, I don't think the game is good after about 30 years or so. 01/02 could be different I don't know.
A quick check shows five rich teams currently in the Premiership, 3 in the 1st, 2 in the 2nd, 2 in the 3rd, 1 in the Conference and four below that (although non of them have ever made the top five divisions and are all still semi-pro). Not that many around, probably a similar number listed as secure.

[DutchFootballRulez]

This is how I know I'm a CM Novice( ok n00b)

I've only gotten to the 09/10 season without getting tired of winning the CL and League titles.

Granted this was w/ EP3 of CM4. But it was ridiculous how I would just dominate w/ Barca for 5 years running. Oh well...I have to go a whole weekend Minues any CM or Madden..woe is me.

[Basti]

I keep getting this widget error during match play when I look into the tactics screen

Does anyone else get this or is this because I downloaded the game without actually buying it

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally posted by Basti
I keep getting this widget error during match play when I look into the tactics screen
Does anyone else get this or is this because I downloaded the game without actually buying it

Its very possibly because you're using a warez version - warez games generally have some code stripped out of the executable to remove the copy protection, this can sometimes have unexpected effects on the game itself - such as causing odd bugs or crashes.

Please buy a copy of the game and prevent me from having to get a proper job ;)

[Peakite]

Originally posted by DutchFootballRulez
This is how I know I'm a CM Novice( ok n00b)

I've only gotten to the 09/10 season without getting tired of winning the CL and League titles.


Looking at the CM fora, it'd seem most people get bored after four of five. Which is sad as the game improves with age.

[Liverpool_SC]

In your opinion does it improve with age because you become forced to really improve your scouting beyond name recognition, team strength etc. (due to players retiring) or improve your tactics to keep up with the brilliant new coaches or because it is neat to see what names the game randomly generates or simply to see what happens to various (currently) teams over time?

The problem I have with continuing games is that teams make money out the yin-yang as my managerial expertise takes over and short of signing on with a lower division team and repeating the process - there is not much left to do. Unless you get into the - I wonder if I can get Zinadene Zidane to sign with me before he stinks. I generally pick troubled teams or second division teams to start a match with (I have not done a conference to premiership thing yet, although I did bring QPR up to the top once), so I tend to have a pretty good challenge in 5 - 6 years. But soon I make it to the top and it gets tiresome. Once I win a continental competition and the league and a domestic cup treble - I am usually satisfied.

Plus, I like fiddling around with different leagues and since I only play 4 - 5 hours per week (on average) with a binge here or there, playing the same match for hundreds of hours would probably get pretty old.

Teams I have played seriously:

Crystal Palace (easy to succeed with)
Kilmarnock (won league in season 3 on goal diff, but was largely forced to remake team to accomplish this. Rangers castoffs can be very useful!)
QPR (like robbing a baby)
NAC Breda (Ernie was too expensive - money problems are almost impossible to deal with, but I stuck it out. Youssef Hersi is awesome)
St Etienne (hard! - first time I have ever been sacked. I got canned in January of the first season, mainly due to ridiculous expectations and overpaid/inconsistant players. Transfer windows really stink in French League.)
Kaiserslautern (my best yet. DESTROYED BL after one season of consolidating, even though it can be tough signing non-german players due to low rep)

Teams I have an eye on playing later:

Tenerife or Alavas
Chievo Verona or Sampadoria
Barry Town
Club Bruge
A lower-level Russian Premier League team
A lower-level Portugese Team (I imagine that the decent depth at the top of this league could make it a challenge)
The Iraklion team in the Greek League

I would love to play an MLS team if the game play was decent (I only have 01/02 at this point - I was going to get CM4, but shied away after hearing about all of the bugs. Figure I will wait until the next release - especially since I am having so much fun with 01/02 still)

So many interesting teams, so little time:).

[Peakite]

For me the scouting doesn't become more improtant, as I'm used to relying on that rather than previous knowledge of the game, but from playing different saves the same names do crop up from time to time. I'd avoid the latest vastly overrated player at the start. But it it satisfying to pick up a player as an unknown and later find him in the news for doing well, probably with a larger club.

I am finding the game harder though, tactics have to come and go, some seemingly recycled better than others at a later date, but always having an eye for experimentation. Some work, others don't. During the 2020's I found myself in charge of the top side around, a good first XI, a tactic that suited everyone, and an awful lot of trophies, I haven't even got close to that since.

As for seeing how teams develop over time, it is interesting to some degree, but I find as you play the game (as opposed to just taking one long holiday) is that because the teams move quite slowly, you don't suddenly find a team having dramatically moved. Indeed, you do get used to the teams as they are, and in many cases it'd be quite nice for real life to reflect CM.

For the leagues, I will confess that the majority of those included in CM don't interest me, I much prefer something with a lot of depth, several divisions and various cup compeitions if possible, which has meant I don't feel much inclination to move on, Italy (where I've spent a bit of time in past games) and possibly Brazil (where I've never actually managed as yet) would be the ones I'd otherwise plump for. Although if I could add another league to this game, I'd quite happily do so.

As for success getting dull, when it only happens occasionally it makes a welcome change, but even after winning something further success isn't a dead cert. I still find myself wanting to win the FA Cup again, it has kind of been an ongoing challenge for me, it has just taken the odd season or 117 ths far to attempt it.

And incidentally, I'm averaging about the same time per week on the game, although more in binges than always on a regular basis.

[Fah Que]

Does the save file gets larger and larger and eventually level off I hope? Now in this game I am playing, after 8 seasons the save game started 100M now it's almost 300M. I hope it doesn't get any larger because now it's taking forever to load and save the game.

Another question:

What attributes of players that does NOT increase or decrease throughout a player's career?

Here are some I know: Aggression, Balance, Determination, Flair, Work rate.

All physical attributes like jumping or pace can only increase by 3 I think, and it doesn't seem to be permanent. That's the same as Technique.